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Leader of Ukrainian neo-Nazi cell arrested in Russia's Rostov

April 11, 2017 - Fort Russ -

By Eduard Popov - translated by J. Arnoldski -

On April 10th, the leader of the local cell of the extremist organization Misanthropic Division, which is banned in Russia, was arrested in Rostov-on-Don. The issue of arresting the organization’s other members living in Rostov-on-Don is currently being decided.

Misanthropic Division, which appeared simultaneously in Russia and Ukraine, is accused of conducting propaganda among youth. This generation of Ukrainian nationalism, which is more correctly called neo-Nazism, emphasizes racism and neo-paganism. Perhaps the most conceptualized version of this trend was the Kharkov branch of the Patriot of Ukraine organization (the paramilitary wing) and the Social-National Assembly (the political wing) which subsequently yielded the Azov battalion/regiment led by Andrey Biletsky.

Misanthropic Division and similar organizations arose under the banner of building a common Russian, white state, for which Ukraine was supposed to be the springboard. After the start of hostilities in Donbass, their goals radicallly changed. With this war being understood by Ukrainian neo-Nazis as Russia’s war against Ukraine, Ukrainian neo-Nazi cells and organizations now consider Russia a hostile state and operate on Russian territory with the aim of committing sabotage and terrorist attacks and recruiting new members into militants’ ranks.

With varying degrees of intensity, all of these Ukrainian neo-Nazis have been contacted or sent by Ukraine’s SBU (political intelligence) or GUR (military intelligence). Moreover, these contacts became stronger after the beginning of the war in Donbass. While Misanthropic Division’s resources are small, what is important is just how quality trained these Ukrainian neo-Nazis are by Ukraine’s special services. In this case, even a small cell of saboteurs is capable of inflicting significant damage on our country. In March 2014, I reiterated the threat posed by Ukrainian terrorism on Russian territory and warned of the mass infiltration of Russian territory by Ukrainian militants by at least summer 2014.

However, a number of Ukrainian nationalist organization cells had been established in Southern Russia long before the events of 2014. On the one hand, there were legal organizations in the likes of the Rostov City Ukrainian National-Cultural Autonomy headed by Makarchuk, who has been published by Ukraine’s Svoboda Party. This organization has carried out active propagandizing of "Ukrainian identity" in Rostov schools and supplied them with questionable Ukrainian literature. Makarchuk promotes the idea that the Don region is ethnic Ukrainian territory and that a third or even 40% of the Don’s population is Ukrainian. His statements have not been met with refutation by Rostov authorities, even after they were published by media. Moreover, Makarchuk is a member of the Rostov region’s Public Chamber.

Another well-known figure of “soft” Ukrainophilia is the leader of the Kuban branch of the Shevhchenko Scientific Society, V. Chumachenko, a former scholarship holder at the Free University in Munich which was created by the Banderite emigration.

Alongside legal Ukrainian organizations associated with Banderite organizations in Ukraine and Western Europe, Rostov and the Kuban region are also the operation zones of underground cells of the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self-Defense organizations. Thus, a favorable environment for the development of “soft” Ukrainophilia and a subversive-terrorist Ukrainian underground has long been established in Southern Russia. In the very least, part of it has been tied to Ukraine’s General Consulate in Rostov-on-Don. And, of course, with links to political and state structures in Ukraine.

Of course, much less is known about the activities of the Ukrainian terrorist underground besides the fact that the nature of its activities centers around recruiting youth into neo-Nazi groups fighting in Donbass, propagandizing the ideas of Ukrainian neo-Nazism, and, most likely, establishing underground cells for committing terrorist attacks on Russian territory.

If we take into account the fact that these people speak Russian, are little distinguishable from the local population, and in some cases are Russian citizens (Ukrainians naturalized in Russia or local adherents of Ukrainian neo-Nazism), then the danger posed is particularly high.

It must also be considered that over the past three years, a number of Misanthropic Division and other organizations’ militants have passed through the war in Donbass, some of whom received training from Ukraine’s special forces, including for conducting a sabotage and terrorist war on the territory of the “aggressor country”, i.e., Russia.

The likelihood of terrorist attacks being carried out by Ukrainian neo-Nazis is only increasing.